Visit me once each year, for it's wrong to abandon people forever.

I wake up early in the morning and walk for an hour. If I have something to write, I prefer to write in the morning until midday, and in the afternoon, I eat.

Madness is the acme of intelligence.

When you spend time with your friends, what do you talk about? Those things which made an impression on you that day, that week ... I write stories the same way. Events at home, in school, at work, in the street, these are the bases for a story. Some experiences leave such a deep impression that instead of talking about them at the club I work them into a novel.

One effect that the Nobel Prize seems to have had is that more Arabic literary works have been translated into other languages.

In Egypt today most people are concerned with getting bread to eat. Only some of the educated understand how democracy works.

An allegory is not meant to be taken literally. There is a great lack of comprehension on the part of some readers.